School business professional apprenticeship, level 4 · Register title: School business professional (ST0575)
Grow a school business manager who leads alongside your headteacher
The Growth and Skills Levy covers the training and assessment, and we handle the enrolment and the paperwork. Over 18 months your school business manager learns in your own school or trust, working on your budgets, contracts, people and governance, and from halfway takes on a champion role alongside your central team. They might already run your school office, or be stepping up from finance or administration.
What they'll be able to do
Three milestones, ending ready for assessment
Understand the school's context, from the DfE and Ofsted to the school development plan, and work as a professional peer to senior leaders. Draft and monitor budgets, benchmark nationally, and test whether the budget funds the curriculum.
Run procurement and contracts to current regulations, manage the site, data protection requests and freedom of information with confidence, and line manage support teams, from safer recruitment to appraisals.
Hold risk and compliance for governors and trustees, lead marketing and communication with parents and stakeholders, and deliver a workplace project ready for assessment.
Their learning journey
Six themes, built around your work
The school business professional
The role, the education landscape, professional conduct, and the confidence to lead as a peer to senior leaders.
Financial management
Funding streams, budgets, financial controls, pre-audit checks, benchmarking, and whether the budget funds the curriculum.
Procurement, contracts and infrastructure
Procurement law and value for money, contract management, the school site, and practical data protection.
People and leading teams
Contracts, payroll, safer recruitment, current employment law, appraisals, and leading support teams.
Governance, risk and safeguarding
What governors and trustees need, risk and insurance, compliance, safeguarding policy, and the census.
Marketing, communication and the workplace project
How marketing supports funding, stakeholder communication, income generation, and the project they'll present at assessment.
The champion role
Each apprentice champions finance, HR or facilities, working with your central team and carrying that expertise back into their school.
Simulated task and workplace project
A simulated task with a 30-minute presentation and 30 minutes of questions, and a workplace project with a 3,500-word report, a 30-minute presentation and 60 minutes of questions. Graded fail, pass or distinction.
Every programme works the same way. They learn it, use it in your organisation, then look back at what they did and why.
Know it
How school funding, procurement, HR, governance and estates fit together.
Show it
Budgets, contracts, teams and a workplace project that improves how your school or trust runs.
Live it
Asking the difficult question, making the decision, and leading others through change.
Who you could put forward
Someone already with you, or someone new
The school business manager already in post
Experienced, often self-taught, and ready to lead with the formal grounding behind them.
Your finance officer or office manager stepping up
Someone you see taking on the business side of a school.
A member of your central trust team
Someone who needs to understand how each school runs from the inside.
Someone new to education
A finance or business professional joining schools, who needs the education context. Foundational finance is built in for those who need it.
You're trusting us with someone from your team. Here's how we look after them.
One coach from start to finish, working with them in your school or trust.
A one-to-one review every month, and a three-way review with you at the end of every module, roughly every three months.
Learning built into the job: their evidence comes mainly from real work, such as budgets, contracts, discussions and presentations, rather than long written assignments.
What your organisation gets
A business lead, better value, and wider central reach
A business lead your headteacher can rely on
Someone who brings the financial and operational view to decisions as a peer, not only reporting in.
Better value from every pound
Benchmarking, procurement and contract management that hold up at audit.
Your central team's reach extended
From halfway, they champion finance, HR or facilities, carrying central expertise into their school.
Training and assessment are funded from the Growth and Skills Levy you already pay, up to the funding band for this standard. If you don't pay the levy, there's nothing to pay for apprentices under 25, and a 5% contribution for those aged 25 and over.
We check eligibility before you commit to anything. We complete the enrolment, the funding agreement, and the records the rules require, in the format auditors expect.
You get one named account manager, from your first conversation to your last review. If something isn't working, you go to them, and we take it seriously.
The honest answers
Questions people actually ask
Yes. It's designed for primary, secondary and special schools, single academies, multi-academy trusts, maintained schools and federations.
No. Evidence comes mainly from their real work, such as budgets, contracts, professional discussions, presentations and observations.
Training and assessment are funded from the Growth and Skills Levy, up to £6,000. If you don't pay the levy, there's nothing to pay for apprentices under 25, and a 5% contribution for those aged 25 and over. We'll confirm exactly what applies before you commit.
At least 370 hours of off-the-job training across the programme, much of it in the work they already do, including the champion role.
If they move to a new employer, they can carry on their apprenticeship there. Your funding commitment from the Growth and Skills Levy ends when they leave.
Let's begin
Tell us who you'd like to back.
We'll reply within one working day. You'll know whether this programme fits them, what it costs you, and how quickly they could start. No commitment. And if we're not the right fit, we'll tell you.
Together, let's go